


Forgotten Forever

by commas_and_ampersands



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-02-28 02:05:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13261323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commas_and_ampersands/pseuds/commas_and_ampersands
Summary: The battle with Ail and Ann had been brought to a peaceful finish.  She’d ended the Makaiju’s suffering.  The Tsukikage no Knight was gone, now one with Mamoru.  Everything was going to be fine.Until Mamoru woke up and still didn't remember their past, still didn't remember his past, and what they were to each other.Maybe nothing was ever going to be again.





	1. Hell Is a Waiting Room

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank yous to everyone who has periodically asked me what was happening with this story and when they might see an update. The fact that so many of you still care years later humbles me and warms my heart. Thank you so, so much for all the love and support over the years. I will try very hard to earn that loyalty.
> 
> The rating and warnings aren't applicable now, but I figure I should go ahead and flag them now. I'll be providing more context in future notes for relevant chapters, but let me know if you need anything else.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was not a fairy tale. A kiss would not wake him.

It was over.  
  
That was what Sailor Moon kept telling herself.  The battle with Ail and Ann had been brought to a peaceful finish.  She’d ended the Makaiju’s suffering.  The Tsukikage no Knight was gone, now one with Mamoru.  
  
“He looks bad,” she murmured, pushing his bangs away from his forehead.  It felt cold.  She resisted the urge to brush her lips against his clammy skin.  This was not a fairy tale.  A kiss would not wake him.  “Shouldn’t…?  The Tsukikage no Knight said reuniting his spirit with Mamoru would heal him, but he doesn’t look any better.”  
  
Her friends did not immediately answer, which only contributed to her rapidly escalating panic.  She wanted Mercury to give some logical, technical-sounding medical reason for Mamoru’s condition.  Or Mars to tell her something she sensed about their spirits rejoining.  She wouldn’t understand it any more than Mercury’s explanation, but if one of them could figure it out, then she could relax.  But neither of them said anything.  Jupiter didn’t give her a reassuring hug.  Venus didn’t make a bad joke about Mamoru sleeping through their victory party.  None of them were saying anything, and that was wrong.  It means none of them understood any better than she did, and that was wrong, too.  It was all wrong.  
  
Finally, she heard Mars step forward, though something was off in the way her heel strikes echoed in the open air.  “He went through a lot.  We all did.”  
  
“But he should be better.  Why isn’t he?” Sailor Moon insisted, her voice breaking.  She didn’t want to cry anymore, not over this.  He was supposed to be awake and looking at her, finally _seeing_ her.  Maybe this wasn’t a fairy tale, but they deserved some kind of happy ending.  
  
Luna limped next to her, favoring her injured paw.  “He’s going to be all right, Sailor Moon.”  
  
“I don’t think Tsukikage no Knight meant he would fix everything,” Jupiter added.  “He couldn’t be that powerful.”  She glanced at Venus and Artemis while she thought Sailor Moon couldn’t see, and mouthed, ‘Could he?’  
  
They both shrugged, but Artemis answered, “I doubt it.”

Sailor Moon’s hands began to shake.  He had to wake up.  If he didn’t, she’d fly apart, worse than before.  She’d have to keep going all over again, never mind that it would feel like walking on glass, and she didn’t want to.  All she wanted was for him to be healthy, for him to open his eyes and finally know who she was.  
  
“We ought to get him to a hospital,” Mercury murmured.  “In fact, I think we all need medical attention.  Jupiter’s having trouble breathing.”  She flushed immediately, as if she hadn’t meant to say that.  
  
Sailor Moon tore her eyes away from Mamoru’s prone body.  Her eyes widened, and she began crying in earnest.  “You can’t breathe!  Why didn’t you say something?”  
  
“No!” Jupiter insisted, holding middle gingerly.  “It’s not that bad.  I’m fine.  Really.”  
  
“No, she isn’t,” Luna snapped.  “I’d guess at least one of her ribs is broken, and she’s attempting to be stoic.  Poorly.”  
  
“Luna, really, it’s okay.”  
  
“It most certainly is not okay!  And Mars, don’t think I haven’t noticed—"  
  
Mercury ignored the back-and-forth and crouched down beside Mamoru with obvious difficulty.  Sailor Moon chastised herself for not noticing their pain before.  Of course her friends were hurt.  They’d been tossed around just as much as she had been.  She’d apologize later, to each of them individually, so they knew she meant it.  
  
For now, she just leaned gently against Mercury’s shoulder and watched her friend reach for Mamoru’s wrist.  “I couldn’t find a pulse, but I’ve never been good at that sort of thing.”  
  
Mercury smiled gently.  “Well, I am, and I can tell you that his pulse is strong.  I’d say Tsukikage no Knight helped more than we can see just now.”  
  
Sailor Moon sagged back against Mars’s legs, her bones practically liquidating in relief.  “Thank you.”  
  
“But he still needs to see a doctor,” Artemis pressed.  “You too, Usagi.  Can you even stand?”  
  
Sailor Moon stared at him as though he spoke a foreign language.  She'd had just enough time to imagine the how the aftermath of their battle would play out, and she’d envisioned Mamoru and her rising together.  Having to do it on her own seemed wrong.  But she realized she would have to, unless she wanted Mars sniping at her.  “I… I think so.”  
  
Sailor Moon slowly stumbled to her feet, trembling.  Now that she was moving, she felt acutely aware of what her body had gone through.  She and Mamoru had taken the brunt of Ail and An’s assault, after all.  She felt so weak that keeping her knees straight took an effort.  
  
Mercury nodded approvingly at this progress and then rose beside Sailor Moon.  “Just take deep breaths, Sailor Moon.  We’ll get everyone help.”  She began to absently massage her wrist.  “I think the next order of business is alerting the proper authorities.  I can use the computer to—"  
  
“Too late, Mercury,” Venus called out suddenly.  Sailor Moon whirled too quickly and knocked against Mars to keep her balance.  While the others had hovered around her and Mamoru, Venus had moved to the edge of the roof.  Hopefully that meant she wasn’t too badly hurt.  “I’ve got a few ambulances, two fire trucks, and more police that I can count.  Unless I’m seeing double.  Which to be fair, I might be.”  
  
“I’m guessing the press isn’t far behind,” Artemis continued.  
  
Venus sighed woefully.  “And my hair such a mess.  I’m in no shape for the tabloids.”  
  
“What would they want with you?” Artemis said.  “It’s not like you’re famous or anything.”  
  
“Do I need to quote my circulation rates to you again?”

“Sailor V’s don’t count.”  
  
Before Venus could take loud and dramatic offense to the dig, Jupiter brought to fingers to her mouth and whistled shrilly.  It brought a halt to the burgeoning argument, but judging by how she clutched her ribs after, it had been a mistake.  “Ow, shit!  That hurt.  Not my best plan.  Okay, so we need medics, and some are on their way.  Stay here?”  
  
“Bad idea,” Venus said, moving back to the main group.  “Unless you’re in the mood to be interviewed about what you do in the off-hours.”  
  
“Sounds like a dream come true for you,” Artemis teased.  
  
“You’re lucky I’m too sore to torture you, fuzz butt.”  
  
“Would you two shut up for a second?” Mars growled.  “If we’re going to go, we need to go.”  
  
“No!” Sailor Moon cried, making everyone jump.  “I’m not leaving Mamoru.  Don’t try to tell me he’ll be fine.  I don’t want to leave him.”  
  
The four Senshi and two cats exchanged a hesitant glance.  Obviously, they didn’t want to stick around.  Sailor Moon knew Mars would argue to leave more strenuously than the others, but as it turned out, Mercury didn’t give her the chance.  “I’m not sure we can make it anyway.”  She closed her eyes, allowing her transformation to slip off her in a rush of cool moisture, leaving Ami Mizuno where Sailor Mercury had once stood.  
  
“What are you doing?” Jupiter asked.  
  
Ami ignored her for the moment, staring at Venus.  “Did they see you?”  
  
“Doubtful," she said.  "They were in a rush to get to the door.  We’ve got some time before their get up here.  The roots aren't blocking their path, but the elevators are beyond busted."  
  
Ami nodded briskly and addressed them as a group.  “It will be suspicious if they find five girls injured where the Senshi were active, but it’ll be equally suspicious if five girls show up at a hospital in our condition.  It will be easier on all of us if we stay here.

“People definitely saw Usagi and Mamoru come in here.  We’ll say we knew Usagi was coming here, and that she was supposed to meet us later.  When she didn’t show up, we got worried and came by.  It’s no secret Seijuurou liked Usagi and that Natsumi didn’t get along with her, so we thought they might have gotten into a fight.  We saw weird flashes and ran inside before the entrance was blocked.  We were hurt trying to help Usagi and Mamoru.  Then the Senshi showed up, and we blacked out.  Agreed?”  
  
Jupiter stared at Ami in open admiration.  “No one can ever accuse you of being a bad liar.”  
  
“Not when it counts,” Ami said.  “Now go pretend to be unconscious.”  
  
Jupiter and Venus gave twin salutes as they detransformed.  They smiled Sailor Moon’s way before turning to arrange themselves among the rubble.  Makoto hissed and swore with every movement while Minako loudly wondered how to pose herself to be the most attractive disaster victim.  Mars rolled her eyes, detransformed, and then drifted away, but she didn’t go very far.  Luna and Artemis both vanished, probably planning to hide beneath a large chunk of rubble.  
  
Ami was about to find her own spot, but Sailor Moon reached out to stop her, stopping short of grabbing the girl’s uninjured hand.  
  
“Yes?” Ami asked, raising her eyebrows in expectation.  
  
Sailor Moon licked her lips, uncertain with how to proceed.  She felt selfish even thinking about this right then, but she couldn’t wait to ask Ami later.  She had to know something now, so she could allow herself to hope.  
  
"Do you think… do you think he’ll remember now?”  
  
The question took Ami aback, and Sailor Moon almost regretted asking.  But Ami would be honest with her, would rather give her the right answer than the one she wanted to hear.  
  
“I don’t know,” Ami admitted.  “But if Tsukikage no Knight represented Mamoru’s memories, and if he is one with Mamoru now, I think so.”  
  
Sailor Moon’s heart felt lighter.  She looked back towards where Mamoru lay, feeling comforted for the first time.  “That’s what I thought too, but I just needed someone else to say it.”  
  
Ami obviously wanted to say more, but she suppressed the impulse for some reason.  Maybe she was worried the paramedics would arrive soon.  In the end, Ami told her to stay cheerful and squeezed her hand before drawing away.  
  
Sailor Moon allowed her transformation to fade in a sparkling cascade of pink ribbon and feathers.  She laid down just a few feet away from Mamoru, daring even to reach out and grasp his fingers with her own.  
  
She closed her eyes just before the doors to the roof burst wide open.

* * *

Several hours later, after they'd been examined and interrogated in equal measure, Usagi asked, “Do you think he’ll want to see me right away?”  They'd congregated in the waiting room, and her head was pooled in Makoto's lap.

Makoto shrugged, absently combing her fingers through one of Usagi’s pigtails.  “I don’t know.  He might need some time to collect himself, you know.  It’ll be a big deal, remembering all of that.”  
  
Usagi’s heart lurched at the thought.  Would she really have to wait that long to see him again?  It had been all she could do to allow them to be separated at the hospital.  
  
Rei stopped pacing.  She'd pretended like she needed to get used to the crutches she'd been given, but really, she was just pacing.  “Usagi.  A few days won’t matter as long as he remembers, right?”  
  
“And as long as he’s healthy,” Luna added quietly.  
  
Makoto nodded.  “We already know he doesn’t need surgery like they thought he would.”  She paused thoughtfully.  “Come to think of it, he probably did until Tsukikage no Knight helped him.”  
  
Rei cleared her throat loudly, glaring.  
  
“Ah, I mean—I’m sure it was never that serious!”  
  
Usagi smiled.  “It’s okay, you guys.  I feel better now that Dr. Mizuno told us he’ll be all right.”  

By a stroke of luck, they had been taken to the hospital where Ami’s mother worked while she was on call.  As soon as an orderly had recognized the name of Dr. Mizuno’s only daughter on the admission forms, she had been notified.  The doctor had examined everyone personally, apart from Mamoru, whose injuries were more severe and needed to be evaluated immediately.  However, at Ami’s behest, she had consulted with the attending doctor and discovered that Mamoru was not as bad off as they’d originally thought.  
  
As for the other girls' families, Usagi's parents had been at one of Shingo's away baseball games, and it would be a few hours before they arrived.  Rei had managed to convince (or threaten) Yuuichirou and her grandfather to stay at the shrine, insisting that she was perfectly capable of getting home by herself.  Makoto of course had no parents to call.  She had some distant relatives who lived in Sapporo, but she’d opted not to bother them unless it was a real emergency.  And Minako had refused to give any contact information at all.  She’d finally taken to claiming Artemis as her next of kin, and everyone stopped asking.

Usagi glanced over to where Minako stood apart from their group, Artemis curled up on her shoulder.  She’d been quiet ever since they reached the hospital, spending time alone.  Usagi thought it was weird.  “Do you think Minako’s okay?”  
  
Rei shrugged, but Usagi didn’t miss the quick frown she sent Minako’s way.  “None of the EMTs said she was the prettiest victim.  Maybe she’s pouting about it.”  
  
“Nah, there’s probably a cute doctor out there taking a cigarette break or something,” Makoto said.  “She doesn’t want the rest of us ogling him after she ‘found him first.’”

Rei laughed, dry as dust and burnt paper.  “That sounds about right.”

Usagi wrinkled her nose.  “Minako shouldn’t date a smoker.  They… smoke.”  
  
Makoto snorted and patted Usagi’s thigh.  “I’ll let her know.”

“That’ll only encourage her,” Rei said.  “What I want to know is what’s taking Ami so long.”  
  
“Dr. Mizuno was upset to see Ami in that condition,” Luna said.  “She hid it well, but you can hardly blame her for wanting to be alone with Ami for a while.”  
  
“No,” Rei agreed.  “But once Ami’s finished with her mother, she’s supposed to check on Mamoru and then update us.  It’s been over an hour!”  
  
“Patience is a virtue,” Makoto teased.  
  
Rei scoffed, readjusting her grip on the crutches.  “A useless virtue.”  
  
Usagi laughed along with her friends, but the truth was, she was just as impatient as Rei.  She knew Makoto was probably right; he would need some time.  But Usagi could hardly wait for the day, the hour, _the minute_ when he would be ready to see her.  She didn’t know where it would be; he might still in the hospital, or it could be at the arcade, or even on some random street corner.  He’d smile at her, the kind smile he so rarely displayed for anyone.  He’d recognize her, _know_ her.  Usagi would throw her arms around his neck, probably crying.  He might tease her, but he'd hold her so she knew he didn't mean it.  It would no longer be a one-sided romance.  It would be real and whole, and everything would be all right again.  
  
She could only wait until that happened.

* * *

"All right, Minako," Artemis hissed, his eyes darting about to make sure that no one overheard him.  "Something's eating you, and it's making my ears twitch." 

Minako smiled ruefully.  She placed a hand on the window, watching another ambulance pull in.  "Explain to me what one thing has to do with the other?"  
  
Artemis muttered darkly under his breath.  
  
She heard shouting and turned back to look out the window.  EMTs and triage nurses swarmed around an arriving ambulance, shouting back and forth at one another.  One man climbed on top of the gurney and began performing CPR on a patient.  His hands were covered in blood.  
  
“Do you think that’s because of us?” she asked softly.  
  
“No,” Artemis said without hesitation.  “Even if it has anything to do with the Makaiju, it has nothing to do with you.”  
  
“Maybe,” she said.  “Still doesn’t feel great, though.”  
  
“It wouldn’t,” Artemis said.  “And you haven’t distracted me by the way.  I still want to know what’s up with you.”  
  
Minako frowned, finally tearing her eyes away from the bloody scene in front of her.  “Are you expecting me to be cheerful after that?”  
  
“No,” Artemis answered.  “But I’d expect you to be cheering someone else up.”  He glanced meaningfully towards Usagi. “Don’t you want to be with them?”  
  
“I can’t have a minute to myself every once in a while?”  
  
“You don’t like being by yourself.”

“Wow.  You couldn't just let me end the day with getting beat up by a tree.  No, you've got to get your little kitty paw knocks in.”

“You’re avoiding Usagi.”  
  
“I am not—"  
  
“Minako, please.  Don’t lie to me.  Just tell me what’s going on.”  
  
She rolled her eyes. “You’re too perceptive for a cat.”  
  
“So you’ve said.”  
  
Minako could have kept deflecting and avoiding for hours, but frankly, she was too tired to bother.  "I'm worried about Usagi and Mamoru."  
  
“And we’re not?” Artemis asked, bordering on defensive.  
  
Minako swatted at him, though she took care not to actually hit him.  “Keep your voice down!  I know everyone’s worried, but it's.... They're not worried in the same way I am.”

Artemis butted his head against her chin.  “Minako.  Tell me.”  
  
Minako steadied herself.  It had to be said.  Just once, with Usagi out of earshot, she had to say it.  Then maybe she wouldn’t think it anymore.  
  
"Who is he going to be when he wakes up?”

Artemis frowned.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean, there have been what, six different versions of this guy in as many months?  He’s Mamoru, he’s Tuxedo Kamen, he’s Prince Endymion, he’s Evil Prince Endymion, he’s whatever the hell Tsukikage no Knight was.  He's died.  He’s been brainwashed.  He’s lost his memory.  Which version is lying in that hospital bed right now?”

Artemis stared in horror.  “You think he’s going to wake up evil again?”

“No, I’m not explaining this right.  I just mean… I know she’s anxious for this to fix everything.  I’m scared of what will happen if it doesn’t turn out like she hopes."  
  
Artemis stared at her in disbelief.  Minako couldn’t be sure what he was thinking, but she guessed it wasn't 100% complimentary.

"It has to," Artemis finally insisted.  She wondered if it sounded hollow to him.  
  
“Because you say so?”  
  
“Because it makes sense,” Artemis said.  “Tsukikage no Knight remembered Usagi, Sailor Moon, Beryl, all of it.  He’s with Mamoru now.  Why wouldn’t he remember?”  
  
“Why didn’t Tsukikage no Knight heal him completely like Usagi thought he would?”  
  
“There are a hundred explanations for that,” Artemis countered.  “Mamoru would have had a much worse reaction to the beating because he wasn’t transformed like you.”  
  
“You didn’t seem so sure of that before.”  
  
“I’ve had time to think.  And now I’m sure that when he does wake up, he’ll be in pain, but he’ll remember."  
  
“And he’ll love her?”

“Is that what this is about?  You think he won’t?”

Minako thought that the first time she’d met Mamoru.  Well, the first time, she'd been saving him from Zoisite, and the second time, he’d been unconscious.  Maybe those didn't count.  But the first time she’d met him on his feet, he’d been trying to kill her.  And nearly every story she heard about the guy before he’d been kidnapped left her cold.  He’d treated Rei and Usagi badly independent of being brainwashed and quietly wondered if Beryl making him evil (or at least evil-adjacent) had taken all that much effort.  Nothing she’d seen of his second chance at life had done anything to change that opinion.  If everything went according to Usagi's hopes, Minako was going to spend the foreseeable future biting her tongue bloody.

But she wasn’t tired enough to say all of that, not yet.  Probably not ever.  So she shrugged.  
  
"Listen to me, Aino Minako," Artemis said.  "He is going to remember her and the Dark Kingdom and maybe even a little bit of the Silver Millennium.  He is going to remember that he loved her once, and he’s going to love her all over again.  Then, I don’t know, they’ll kiss passionately, ride off into the sunset on his motorcycle, and live happily ever after.  And if you say one more word about this, I will cough up so many fur balls on your clothes that you'll have to go through the rest of your life in a potato sack.  Understood?"

That was about what she'd expected him to say and decided not to argue anymore.  Instead, she made a show of fighting to suppress a grin.  “Ride off into the sunset on a motorbike, huh?” she asked, winking lasciviously.  “Is that what you’d do with Luna if you were people?”  
  
Artemis turned pink beneath his fur.  “Shut up.”  
  
“It totally is.  You're adorable."

“I hate you.”

“So you’ve said.”  She paused.  “I’m on your side, you know.”  
  
“I do,” Artemis sighed.  Then he glanced over at Usagi.  “So.  It’s out of your system.  You should go take care of her.”  
  
Minako hung back for a few more seconds.  She breathed deeply, preparing.  Acting was all about the process and the work that went into the performance beforehand.  She couldn’t let anyone know what she was really thinking.  Luckily, she’d had a lot of practice.  
  
She spun, nearly pirouetting over to where the others waited.  She crouched down in front of Usagi and smiled.  “Sorry, there was a really cute male nurse having a cigarette outside.  He was so cool!  I think he had a tattoo.”

Makoto punched the air.  “Nailed it!  Well, I said doctor, not nurse, but still.  Totally called it.”  
  
Rei scoffed, “How can you think of boys at a time like this?”  
  
“Hey, he was really cute!” Minako maintained.  Then she looked down at Usagi and said, “Seriously, he might have gotten you to think about somebody other than Mamoru.”  
  
“Nothing could keep me from thinking about—"  She ground to a halt, watching Minako and Makoto fight the urge to smile.  She pouted.  “You’re teasing me.”  
  
“Always,” Minako assured her, patting the top of her hair.  “Now then.  Let’s discuss pet names.  He'll call you Snuggle Bunny _obviously_ , but then what do you call him?  What about... Scrumptious Muffin?  Honey Buns?  Chicken Wing?”  She paused.  "It's possible I'm just hungry, but I stand by Snuggle Bunny."  
  
Usagi laughed loudly, belatedly covering her mouth.  “Mamoru would hate that!”  
  
“Well, it’s not about what he likes, is it?” Minako asked with a wink.  “What do you think, Rei?  You have something you call Yuuichirou, right?”  
  
Minako watched Rei turn a spectacular shade of purple while Usagi and Makoto giggled.  And Minako kept the laughs coming.  She reminded herself of a ballerina in a music box.  She’d twirl and twirl, dazzling them all for as long as she could.  Because no matter how she tried to convince herself otherwise, Minako could not shake the feeling that soon, they wouldn’t have much to smile about.

* * *

Ami looked over at the myriad of machines and monitors connected to Mamoru.  To her dismay and relief, nothing had changed.  She then checked the few bandages she could see, pulling at them to see if they were too tight, too loose, or dirtied.  Everything seemed in order.  Of course, it wouldn’t have been proper for Ami to do anything if it wasn't, no matter whose daughter she was.  She probably would have called a nurse in.  Then she would have two distractions from her circular thoughts.  
  
Ami sat back down, staring at Mamoru's pale face.  His color might have been better than the last time she’d examined it, but it was hard to tell.  The blue and purple bruises stood out against his flesh like spilled ink on paper.  
  
She worried at her bandaged wrist, willing herself the be patient.  It was not a position she often found herself in, but the long day continued to strain credulity.  She considered killing some time by finding the others and telling them she planned to wait with Mamoru but dismissed the thought.  The staff may not have let her back in his room if she left.  She could also call, she supposed, but in her experience, very little went unobserved in such close quarters.  The others would wait, and so would she.

Usagi had asked her if she thought Mamoru would remember.  Ami had tentatively answered in the affirmative, and as such, she felt personally responsible for confirming her hypothesis.  She wanted to be the one to find the answer and carry it back.  It was her role, one she was preternaturally suited for.  She would solve this puzzle Mamoru had inadvertently become.  
  
Logic dictated that once the physical manifestation of his memories returned to him, Mamoru would remember.  It followed, Ami thought, that his previous abilities would also return.  His physical conditioning would need to be built up again, but she felt confident that Tuxedo Kamen possessed advanced regeneration abilities, much like herself and the other girls.  Yet based on his wrecked body, that hadn’t happened.  Was the assumption that he even possessed such abilities false?  What did that mean when it came to his memories?  Would they be there, hidden beneath several layers of consciousness?  Would he be overwhelmed by them?  Would his mind protect him from the trauma by erasing them all over again?  Would Mamoru heal physically but be broken mentally by the constant tug and pull of his psyche?  
  
Now that she’d been dwelling on it too long, that answer seemed most likely.  His mind had been overwritten, ego shaped to Beryl’s whims, and then ripped in twain out of some unyielding psychic compulsion to protect Usagi.  A rejoining could have meant healing over those scars, or it could have been the last step before tipping him over the edge.  She’d elected to be responsible for finding the answer, but how could she tell Usagi, “He’s alive, but he’s not fine, and I don't know how to change that?"  
  
Suddenly, Mamoru groaned.  
  
Ami jumped, gasping.  A moment later, she chastised herself.  This is what she had been waiting for; there was no reason to be frightened by it.  
  
Then again, there was all the reason in the world.  
  
Mamoru struggled to open his eyes.  One was blackened and nearly swollen shut, but after considerable effort, his vision seemed to clear.  He looked up at Ami and inhaled sharply, genuinely shocked to see her.  "Mizuno?"  
  
Ami's ignored her stomach flip-flopping.  What he called her meant nothing.  She wasn’t transformed, so there was no reason to call her Mercury, and he had no reason to be informal with her either.  
  
"How are you feeling, Mamoru?" Ami asked.  
  
Mamoru pondered that for a moment, obviously trying to come up with something clever to say.  He abandoned the impulse quickly.  “Like shit.”  
  
Ami's cheeks reddened.  She wondered if he would have thought to apologize for swearing based on whether he remembered or not.  "I'll get the nurse in a moment.  They have you on a morphine drip, but they might need to increase the dosage."  
  
"Thanks," Mamoru croaked.  Then his eyes drifted to her bandaged hand.  He took a moment to absorb this and the other bruises that littered her body.  "You're hurt."  
  
“No, I’m fine,” Ami insisted, hiding her arm self-consciously.  “Mamoru, do you remember what happened?” she asked, trying to imbue the sentence with the correct amount of import.  
  
Mamoru looked confused.  She might have missed her mark there.  “Yes, I… there was… Natsumi and Seijuurou.  They were… aliens.”  He chuckled, coughing.  “Only in Tokyo, huh?”  
  
“Apparently,” Ami agreed, smiling softly.  She opened her mouth to speak again, to press him further, when the coughing became more severe.  She needed to get the nurse.  He was clearly in agony, but she didn’t want the painkillers to cloud his mind before she could the answers she needed.  She’d hate herself for this later, but she had to know.  “Mamoru, please tell me what else you remember.”  
  
His coughing subsided.  He closed his eyes and swallowed; it took considerable effort.  "Usagi."  
  
Ami’s heart stopped.  Whether it had done so out of fear or joy depended upon what came next.  "Yes?"  
  
"Is she all right?"  The monitors beeped at her, signaling that his heart rate was increasing.  A physical reaction to the panic he felt that Usagi might be hurt.  A good sign?  
  
Ami nodded.  “Yes, yes, she’s fine. You protected her until the Sailor Senshi arrived.”  She left it at that, hoping the ambiguous statement might be enough for him to connect the dots.  Ami had not been there, but Sailor Mercury had been.  Ami was hurt.  
  
Mamoru’s jaw tightened, his fists clenching.  “They were… hurting her.”  
  
“Yes,” Ami whispered, her voice breaking.  “Yes, they were.”  
  
“But the Senshi… they saved us?”  
  
Ami’s heart sank.  “Do you remember what Usagi did?” she asked.  “What do you remember about Usagi?”  
  
His heart rate rose again.  In fact, it seemed to be speeding up rapidly.  The nurses would be monitoring this from their desk, but perhaps Ami should hit the call button now.  
  
Then suddenly, it leveled out again.  Ami stared, first at the monitor and then at Mamoru.  
  
He seemed genuinely perplexed.  “I reached out for her… and then I woke up, and… yes, the Senshi were there.  Sailor Moon, she—”  
  
Ami had never felt so compelled to shake another human being in her life.  “What?  What about Sailor Moon?”  
  
Mamoru’s eyes narrowed, looking cagey.  “Did she and the other Senshi get Usagi out?” he asked, wheezing.  “I don’t remember seeing her… after Sailor Moon arrived.”  
  
Ami’s heart wrenched.  Usagi had told him she was Sailor Moon.  Ami had heard her.  Mamoru's reluctance to connect the two meant he knew that much.  But if he'd remembered anything beyond that, anything significant about the Moon Kingdom or being Tuxedo Kamen, he would have had no reason to prevaricate.  He would have remembered Ami was Sailor Mercury.  If he didn't remember that, he didn't remember anything.

Her throat felt crushed, but she forced herself to say, “No, that was us.  Me, Makoto, Minako, and Rei.  We knew Usagi was at the apartment, and when we saw what was happening, we ran in.  We got there just before the Senshi did.  We kept her hidden.  That’s why I’m hurt.”  She turned away sharply, her eyes beginning to burn.  “I’ll get a nurse.”  
  
As it turned out, there was no need.  The nurses and doctors bumped into her on her way out.  No doubt they would ask him some of the same questions and perhaps wonder why his heart rate had been so inconsistent.  They might yell at her for agitating the patient.  She left before they could start, shutting the door behind her.  Then she sank onto the hallway floor, brought her knees up to her chest, and hugged her legs.  
  
Mamoru didn’t remember.  She was the one who had to tell Usagi.

* * *

Time passed slowly.  Minako kept a steady string of conversation going.  Rei played the indignant victim at all the right places, while Makoto continued to be the adept partner-in-crime.  Luna and Artemis curled up together on the couch.  Usagi kept her head pillowed in Makoto’s lap, smiling and hopeful.

Then Ami rounded the corner.  
  
"Ami," Usagi asked, sitting up slowly.  "Where have you been?  Is your mother upset?"  
  
“What?  Oh.  No, Mama had to go back to work, so I… I decided to wait with Mamoru until he woke up.”  
  
Now Usagi was up and off the couch in the blink of an eye, ignoring the loud protests of Rei and Makoto.  She couldn’t see the sudden hard line of Minako’s mouth.  
  
“Did you see him?  Did you talk to him?  Is he really all right?  Ami, what did he say?”

“I saw him,” Ami confirmed, opting to take one question at a time.  “He was in a lot of pain, but I’m sure they’ve given him more medication by now.  He’ll sleep for a long time, and he should be better when he wakes up.”  
  
“Great!” Usagi said.  “Did he say anything about me?  Does he want to see me?”  
  
Ami tried to speak.  Her mouth opened and closed, starting sentences she could not manage to voice.  She started stuttering and tears sprang to her eyes.

Makoto swore.  Rei tightened her grip on her crutches.  The cats’ tails drooped.  Minako looked away.  
  
But Usagi couldn’t fathom failure.  “Ami?  Ami, what’s wrong?”  
  
Ami covered her mouth and turned away.  
  
“Ami?” Usagi asked again.  
  
Makoto rose and went to Ami.  She wound her arms around the smaller girl, physically shielding her from Usagi’s questions.  
  
“Ami, please,” Usagi whispered, worried and hurt.  “What—"  
  
“Usagi,” Rei murmured, carefully managing her balance so that she could place a hand on Usagi's shoulder.  “Don’t.”  
  
“Rei, why won’t anyone say what’s going on?”  
  
Rei physically braced herself for the emotional onslaught she knew would come.  She knew it would hurt enough to bruise, so she did it quickly, hoping to lessen the damage.  “He doesn’t remember, Usagi.  It didn’t work.”  
  
“I’m so sorry,” Ami said over Makoto’s shushing noises.  
  
For a moment, Usagi's expression didn't change, the expectant smile frozen on her face.  She glanced down at Rei's hand on her shoulder, the uncharacteristically sympathetic look on her face.  She watched Minako set Luna on the floor so the cat could run to her.  Makoto kept holding Ami.  Ami wouldn’t look at her.  
  
Finally, it registered, as if from far away.

_He doesn’t remember._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story may seem familiar.
> 
> Here's the deal: I've been working on this fic in one form another for over a decade. I think this might be the fourth or fifth time I've stopped writing it only to overhaul it all. The last revision was in 2011, so I am very much not exaggerating when I say this has been going on for a long ass time.
> 
> It's still a story I want to tell, so I'm giving it one last try. Basically half the story is in need of revision, and half needs to be written from scratch. I'm putting up the first two chapters at once as they're both kind of table-setting for what's to come. My dearest wish is to get a revised chapter up every week or so. The quality should improve as I progress though (or that's my dearest wish at least). Hopefully fewer revisions means faster updates!
> 
> Wish me luck!


	2. These Are the Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “She asked me if he would be okay,” Ami said. “I told her that he would be, and I was wrong.”

**Six Weeks Earlier**

It was over.  
  
She had fought the good fight and won the battle.  She had protected Naru, Artemis, and Luna.  She had seen the face of the new enemy, and she had not been paralyzed with fear.  So, yes, it was all over.  
  
All over for her and her normal life.  
  
Only hours before she had been blissfully unaware.  Since the Dark Kingdom had been defeated and her memory had been erased, Usagi had daydreamed about being a super hero and a princess.  She had thought that the life of a hero would be glamorous and exciting, forgetting the details of duty and anxiety.  
  
For weeks, her biggest worry had been what she was going to tell her mother when she saw her latest English test.  She had cried over stupid things like having to stand out in the hallway and losing arcade games.  She had gone around with Naru talking about idols, food, clothes, and cute boys.  
  
Now she remembered that her nightmares had teeth.  She’d dreamed of cold and falling, of screaming her throat raw with loss, of a witch that emerged from a flower, of lips left unkissed.  She understood now.  Her memories had been threatening to surface on their own, and now Luna had dragged them back into the light.  
  
Sailor Moon, the fourteen-year-old heroine with a cheery disposition and a double life, shut her eyes.  She didn't bother to wipe away the tears.

"To the old Usagi... bye bye."  
  
Sailor Moon turned to the two cats, her only companions.  Luna ducked her head.  Any bitterness she might have felt for Luna’s part in her return vanished.  
  
"Luna, no."  Sailor Moon chided knelt and gathered Luna into her arms.  "Don't feel guilty about this, please.  You did what you had to do.  I know that."  
  
Luna nodded reluctantly, snuggling closer to her charge.  "You were so happy.  I wish—"  
  
"So do I,” Sailor Moon interrupted.  “But I understand.”  
  
"Usagi's right," Artemis said.  "What's done is done.  Sailor Moon is awake now, and we shouldn't despair.  We already know our enemy and what they want, which is more than we could say last time.  And Usagi's more experienced now.  It should be… well, maybe not easier, but less complicated.  If that makes sense."  
  
Sailor Moon smiled, setting Luna down.  "You sound like Minako."  She paused, her eyes lighting up.  "How is she?  And Rei?  I see Ami and Makoto at school, but I haven't seen the other girls.  Wait.  I take that back.  I have.  I pass the shrine a lot, and I see Minako around sometimes.  I never noticed it before, how I always see them."  
  
Luna chuckled, pulling herself together.  "I suppose fate really is determined to draw you girls together."  
  
"As for how they are," Artemis began, his whiskers drooping slightly, "I really couldn't say.  Rei's crows are – well, I think they're just disagreeable, but Luna thinks they’re being protective of Rei somehow.  They won't let us anywhere near the shrine."  
  
Sailor Moon considered this.  "They have always been a little strange."  
  
Luna flicked her tail, her eyes narrowed.  "They're protecting Rei from us, so that we don't drag her into a fight again."  
  
"Oh," Sailor Moon said, frowning.  She honestly had no idea what to make of that information, though she wondered what the crows would do if she approached.  "What about Minako, Artemis?"  
  
Artemis suddenly took an acute interest in a crack in the cement, glaring at it as if it had done him some horrible disservice.  
  
Luna spoke for him, ignoring his tail swatting her on her hind leg.  "Apparently, Minako became indifferent to him, so her mother kicked him out."

"She threw a cat onto the street?"  Usagi was horrified.  Artemis could take care of himself of course, but it was still indescribably cruel.  If Artemis had been a normal cat, he probably would have died.  
  
"Forcefully pushed out with her foot, but yes.  And Minako probably hasn't even noticed I'm gone," Artemis grumbled.  "After all I did for that girl.  This is the thanks I get?"  
  
Sailor Moon scratched his head, cooing in as soothing a manner as possible.  "There, there.  I'm sure she'll feel just awful when she remembers everything."  
  
Suddenly, Sailor Moon straightened, almost leaping to her feet.  “Wait, no.  You can’t.”  
  
“Can’t?” Luna asked. “Can’t what?”  
  
“You can’t wake them up,” Sailor Moon insisted.  “Make them remember, whatever.  You can’t.”  
  
Artemis hissed, “But we have to!  You need allies, and—"  
  
“No, please,” Sailor Moon pleaded, folding her hands in supplication.  “I want to try and do this by myself.  I miss them, I do, but I want to give them some time.  Let them be normal for just a little while longer.  Like Artemis said, I’m stronger now.  Better.  Maybe I can take care of the Earth on my own.  At least let me try to give them a chance.  Please?”  
  
Luna and Artemis exchanged wary glances.  Sailor Moon could tell that they didn’t like this idea.  She’d known they wouldn’t.  But she also knew Artemis would want to shield Minako alone for as long as he could, and they both loved the other girls.  If they could just focus on that, maybe she had a chance to give the girls some peace.  
  
Luna unsheathed her claws.  “I don’t like the idea of you not having any allies and no one to support you.”

"I have you," Usagi reasoned.

"You probably need someone with thumbs," Artemis added dryly.  
  
Sailor Moon frowned, mulling over the idea in her mind.  Then she looked up and saw where they were, noticed where they were.  Mamoru’s apartment building was just across the street.  She glanced up to the floor where she thought he was.

And then she made a very selfish decision.  
  
“Maybe I can have someone.”  
  
Luna and Artemis followed her gaze.  It took them a minute to register its significance.  Luna figured it out first.  "Mamoru?”  
  
Artemis was unconvinced.  “Are we sure this a good idea?”  
  
Usagi swallowed, glancing away from them, finding it was difficult to watch them.  “He’ll help.  I know he will.  And it’ll keep the girls out of it for at least a little while, and besides I… miss him.  Maybe that’s silly.  We were never really friends.  I’d just decided not to hate him so much when he got taken.  But he helped me so much.”  
  
Artemis shook his head.  “I don’t—"  
  
"All right," Luna interrupted.  
  
“Luna!  We need to think about this!”  
  
“Do we?” Luna asked wearily.  “Don’t stand there and tell me that you don't love seeing Minako carefree after everything she went through.  That’s how I felt about Usagi, how I feel for all of them.  But I can’t let her be alone either.  So why not Mamoru?”  
  
“He doesn’t deserve a rest either?” Artemis bristled.  
  
Sailor Moon flinched.  
  
“How do you suppose Tuxedo Kamen always managed to find us, Artemis?” Luna demanded.

“What does that have—”

“I always had a theory,” Luna continued, “that he was physically, or perhaps more accurately psychically compelled to follow Sailor Moon.  How else do you explain him always just showing up in the nick of time?  He wasn’t awakened to his powers; his powers awakened when she did.  Because they’re connected from a past life.  How can we be sure the same thing won’t happen this time?  Wouldn’t we rather he know what he’s doing?  Shouldn’t he be working with us instead of operating independently without knowing what he's doing?”  
  
Artemis frowned.  “I guess if you two think this is a good idea, I’ll support it.  I just hope we don’t regret this.”  
  
“We won’t,” Sailor Moon said, certain of herself.  “I know we won’t.”  
  
Sailor Moon moved forward and scooped up both cats.  Once they were secure, she leapt, soaring above the pavement.  She ran quickly as she could, ignoring the throbbing ache in her weakened muscles.  She reached his building soon enough, and Sailor Moon ascended it by way of the balconies.  
  
Sailor Moon finally paused at one of the top apartments, instinctively releasing Luna and Artemis.  She hadn't been counting the floors, but she knew the moment her boot touched the stone that she was in the right place.  Just to be sure, she squinted into the blackened apartment.  She caught sight of a familiar shape dozing beneath a blanket, black hair falling into his eyes.  
  
“This is it,” she said, her heart clenching in her chest.  “This is his apartment.”  
  
Artemis shivered against the wind.  “How do you plan on getting in anyway?”  
  
“He lives on the… what?  Sixteenth floor?”  Luna asked.

“I didn’t count on the way up,” Sailor Moon said.  “Why?”

“Try the sliding door.”

Sailor Moon did as she asked, surprised at how easily it gave way.  “He doesn’t lock it?”  
  
Luna gave the feline equivalent of a shrug.  “This high up, he might not think he has to.”  
  
“And this may be how he got in and out when he was Tuxedo Kamen before,” Artemis pointed out.  “He could be leaving it open without really knowing why.”  
  
Sailor Moon motioned for the cats go in ahead of her.  They obeyed, silently moving from the balcony to the carpeted bedroom.  She hesitated before entering, breathing deeply.  She wasn’t stupid.  She knew this was a gross invasion of privacy, not to mention a technically criminal act.  And making him remember before he was ready… was that really the right thing to do?

But what if Luna was right?  What if he showed up looking to help her without knowing what he was doing?  Wasn’t this kinder?  And even if it wasn’t, he’d forgive her.  She knew he would.  He’d remember, she’d ask for forgiveness, and Rei and the others could live without this burden for a little while longer.  It would be okay.  It had to be.  
  
Finally, she stepped inside.  She hovered over the bed, taking care that her long hair didn’t brush against him.  He looked younger when he was sleeping, free of worries and stress.

Then she remembered that she was about to take all of that away from him and turned away.  
  
“Doesn’t look like we’ll have to worry about him waking up,” Artemis mumbled, flicking his tail towards the bedside table.

Sailor Moon narrowed her eyes.  “Medicine?  He’s sick?”

“It’s a prescription for a sleep aid.  And it looks from the dosage that he’s out for good.”  
  
Sailor Moon frowned.  She didn’t like that Mamoru was still having trouble sleeping.  Did that mean he was still having dreams, or was he natural insomniac?  “I’ll have to ask him about that.”  
  
“I guess you will,” Luna whispered, her voice small.  
  
Artemis meowed with concern.  “Are you sure about this?  Will your powers even work on him?”  
  
Luna appeared affronted.  “Of course they’ll work,” she snapped, hopping onto the bed.  Mamoru grunted but didn’t stir.  
  
“And my first question?” Artemis asked.  
  
Luna’s ears briefly laid flat to her head.  “We’re here now.  We see it through.”  
  
Artemis certainly would have argued her more had Luna not begun.  A shimmer that ran across the crescent on Luna’s brow, and he and Sailor Moon both fell silent.  A moment later, a beam of light shot from the golden moon, stretching out to Mamoru’s sleeping face.  His bangs pulled away from his skin as if lifted by a sudden, spectral breeze, and the room took on a rosy hue.  
  
She held her breath, watching Mamoru for signs of distress.  Sis eyebrows grew closer together and his jaw sharpened.  He moaned quietly, and it was all she could do not to grab his hand.  Was he in pain?  She hadn’t felt anything when Luna had reawakened her memories… except a profound sense of sadness.  Of loss.  Perhaps Mamoru was experiencing the same thing.  
  
But soon, it would all be different.  Mamoru had experienced plenty of horrors as Tuxedo Kamen and Prince Endymion, but there was so much more to his existence than despair.  They’d had fun together as Usagi and Mamoru, hadn’t they?  She knew he liked teasing her, and maybe she could learn to enjoy it, too.  Fighting alongside each other had been terrifying, but it had been exhilarating when he’d held her in his arms.  Surely he’d felt that? 

It would be hard.  She knew that better than anyone.  But she would be there for him every step of the way.  He would see why she had to do this.  He would agree she made the right decision.  And maybe she would finallyfinally _finally_ get the kiss she had denied herself before she'd marched off to die in the cold.  
  
“Something’s wrong,” Artemis said, too loudly.  “Luna?”  
  
She turned to face her guardian and recoiled in shock.  Luna was covered in a thin sheen of sweat, her entire body trembling.  She looked agonized.  
  
“Sailor Moon, pull her away.”  
  
She shook her head.  She didn't want to make it worse.  “But what if—"  
  
Luna mewled in pain.  
  
“Sailor Moon, now!”  
  
This time, she didn’t hesitate.  She reached forward and yanked Luna away, pulling so hard that she nearly toppled.  She stumbled back onto the balcony, cradling Luna close.  Artemis was hot on her heels.  
  
“Luna!” Artemis nearly shouted.  “Luna, talk to me!  What happened?”  
  
Luna let out another weak meow.  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered weakly.  “I don’t know what happened.  It’s like… there’s nothing there.”  
  
Sailor Moon gaped at her.  “What?”  
  
“I mean there are no memories I can find.  They aren’t there,” Luna shuddered.  “Like he’s not even the same person anymore.”

* * *

Usagi opened her eyes.  It was early – earlier than she normally cared to be awake.  Not that she'd slept.  She had been too busy remembering that first night she’d reawakened as Sailor Moon.

Luna had been right, more right than any of them guessed.  Mamoru had instinctively wanted to help her, but couldn’t.  So he’d created a separate personality to protect her when he couldn’t.  It must have happened the moment she transformed again, but the battle had been over too quickly for him to intervene.

When Tsukikage no Knight told her the truth about his identity, she’d been sure all of the mysteries surrounding Mamoru had been solved.  But new questions had sprung up to take the place of old ones, and she was just so tired.  
  
She had stayed up the entire night trying to figure it out.  She vaguely remembered Rei telling her the news the night before, then holding her while she wept.  Usagi's family had arrived soon afterwards, but she hadn't stopped crying.  Not when her knees gave out and her bratty little brother had embraced her like his life depended on it, and not when her parents promised everything would be okay.  They didn't know what had happened.  They didn't know how she'd been gutted.  
  
She wondered what Rei and the others had told her family.  Certainly not the truth.  Maybe something about Natsumi and Seijuurou?  She’d have to figure it out later.  How could she explain what she was really upset about?  
  
Usagi turned her back to the window, unable to stare at the bleeding horizon any longer.  Her mother had suggested staying home that day, but for once, Usagi didn’t want to.  She wouldn’t sleep no matter how tired she was, and she couldn’t stand lying there anymore.  She had to do something, even if it was just go to school.  Maybe she could forget things for a little while.  
  
Usagi quietly got up from her bed, making sure not to wake Luna.  The cat had sat up with her for hours until Usagi convinced her that she was going to sleep.  Luna hadn't made a peep since.  
  
Usagi showed the same consideration to her sleeping family, tip-toeing around the room and shutting her drawers as quietly as possible.  Within ten minutes, Usagi was dressed, though she hardly felt prepared for the day.  
  
She went downstairs and wandered into the kitchen, debating whether or not she wanted to eat.  For once, Usagi didn't have an appetite, but she decided that she had better eat something anyway.  She grabbed one of the muffins her mother had prepared several days before and nibbled on it while she packed her lunch.  
  
When she was done, she looked up at the kitchen clock.  It was way too early to go to school.  But what else could she do?  
  
She walked out of the kitchen, her pink lunch bag dangling from her fingers.  She picked up her satchel filled with untouched homework and stepped into her shoes.  She opened the door and stepped out into the grey morning.  
  
And walked in the opposite direction of the school.

* * *

Motoki furiously polished the counter tops at the arcade, his eyes flitting from the clock to the small television he’d secreted under the counter.  Predictably, time did not move faster and the news did not offer clarity.  No one seemed to know what was going on.  
  
Motoki swore and slapped his palms against the sparkling clean counter.  Mamoru had told him he was going to that apartment complex the previous afternoon, but Motoki had been on a rare long distance call from Reika all night.  He hadn’t heard about the accident or incident or whatever they were calling it until this morning.  He'd finally been able to discover that Mamoru was alive if not necessarily well, but that did nothing to erase the clawing panic that had consumed him earlier.  
  
Motoki stared at the images of the ravaged building and collapsed floors, wondering how _anyone_ could have survived that.  
  
“Got any super-sized donuts, Motoki?”  
  
He jumped.  No one was supposed to be there yet.  He hadn't officially opened the arcade.  But he must have been distracted enough to leave the front door open if Minako was standing there...

...looking about dead on her feet.  “Minako!  What happened to you?”  
  
“Unless I’m hearing voices, I’m guessing you’re watching the news about it,” Minako said.  “Listen, I appreciate the concern, but my head is killing me.  Could you not yell?”  
  
“Shit!  Sorry," he said, making an effort to lower his voice.  “Sorry.  You kind of scared me, and then... doesn't matter.  You were there?”  
  
Minako gestured at her visible bandages.  “Not wearing these as a fashion statement.  Don't get me wrong; I make them work.  But still, not my first choice.”  
  
“Christ,” Motoki breathed.  “I didn’t realize.  I mean, I knew Mamoru was there—"  
  
Minako winced.  
  
“He’s okay, right?  The hospital told me he was okay.”  
  
“Yes, yes, he’s fine,” Minako assured him, quelling his rising panic.  “Sorry, something was throbbing is all.”  She reached into a hidden pocket in her skirt and pulled out a prescription bottle.  “Could I get a bucket of coffee to go with that really big donut?”

Motoki stared.  "Since when do you drink coffee?"

"Since a building fell on me."  
  
“Fair enough.  Want the one with the obnoxious amount of sprinkles?”  
  
“Always.”  
  
“On the house,” Motoki said before she could reach for any money.

She smirked, and looked tired enough doing it that he decided not to feel weird about giving a fourteen-year-old coffee anymore.  "If I tell you what happened, you mean?"  
  
Motoki took a moment to marvel at his lack of social graces that day.  “No, you don’t - I mean, it's not conditional.  I do want to know what could have done that.  Nobody will tell me anything, and I can’t get in to see Mamoru until later today.  You don’t have to tell me much, but anything would help.  Please.”  He placed her order in front of her.  “It’s on the house either way.”  
  
She glanced down and started slowly tearing her donut apart and dunking it in the dark liquid.  She seemed reluctant but amenable.  He didn't push.  
  
“All of us were there,” she finally said.  “Me, Usagi, and the other girls.  Mamoru too, obviously.  Usagi and Mamoru were there before us; we didn’t get there till later.  He definitely got the worst of it, but I promise, he’s all right.  Ami snuck into his room until he woke up to make sure.”  
  
Motoki blinked, raising both eyebrows.  “Ami did that?”  
  
“Well, no one ever expects Ami to do sneaky stuff," she joked.  "So she's perfect for it.  Besides, her mom works at that hospital, so if she got caught, she wouldn’t have gotten in trouble.”

"And he was okay?"  Motoki's stomach roiled with anxiety.  The hospital had barely been willing to tell them he wasn't in a coma.  Asking if he'd been coherent or traumatized wouldn't have gotten him anywhere.

“I don’t really know what they talked about, but I think so.  As okay as he can be.  She got a good look at his chart, but I don't remember everything she told me.  Concussion, blood loss, and a lot of bruising.  No broken bones, and he didn't need surgery.”  
  
Motoki felt his shoulders come down from around his ears.  "Thank you."

"No problem."

"I mean it.  I didn't even know anything was wrong yesterday.  But I saw the news this morning, and he'd mentioned he was going over there.  It looks so bad and I was sure— I thought he'd—"

His throat felt so tight that it burned.  For ninety-three minutes, until he'd connected to the right people at the right hospital, Mamoru had been dead.  Motoki had been so sure if it that it had become immutable fact.  Even hearing he was a listed patient hadn't completely erased that.  He couldn't bring himself to believe some faceless receptionist who might have gotten their paperwork mixed up, but he did believe Minako.  More to the point, he believed Ami.  Mamoru was alive, and Motoki hadn't spent his best friend's last moments on Earth blissfully chatting with Reika about soil samples.

"I get it," Minako said, her voice soft.  "You're welcome.  Really."

"Sorry about me," he apologized, gesturing towards himself.  "I didn't mean to get weepy."

"I suppose I can forgive it," she joked.  "Only because of the free food, you understand."

"I've noticed that buys me a lot of leeway."  He laughed weakly and scrubbed at his eyes.  "Which is great, because I'm still a jerk.  Are you guys all right?  Is anyone else in the hospital?"  
  
“No, we all got off lucky compared to Mamoru.  That giant tree really had it out for him.”

Motoki stared.

She hadn't really just said that.

Even if she'd said it, she hadn't meant it.

Tokyo was weird, but there was weird and there was sentient killer foliage.

"You're shitting me," he finally said.

She grinned and saluted him with her coffee.  "I shit you not."

In addition to not crying in front of customers and not serving fourteen-year-olds coffee, Motoki was willing to bet he also probably shouldn't encourage those same fourteen-year-olds to curse.

Too little, too late.

"This town is so fucking weird."

* * *

Makoto knew it was Ami’s nature to arrive early for school.  Both of them were early birds, and while Ami often put the extra bit of wakefulness towards her studies, Makoto generally preferred to spend time in her apartment, making her home even homier.  Still, when Ami walked around the corner and saw Makoto waiting for her at the school gates, she didn’t seem surprised.  
  
“How are you feeling?  Your ribs, I mean” Ami asked, forgoing pleasantries.  She sounded exhausted, and Makoto wondered if Ami had managed to sleep at all the night before.  
  
“Trying to stay ahead of the pain, like your mom said,” Makoto murmured.  “I’m not taking the Vicodin though.  It makes me too light-headed.”  
  
Ami smiled grimly.  “I know what you mean.  I had to fake taking it last night when Mama gave it to me.”  
  
Makoto’s eyebrows arched.  “Aren’t you full of surprises?”  
  
Ami flushed.  “Well, in case anything else were to happen, I wouldn’t want to be useless.”  
  
Makoto's jaw tightened.  She had a feeling that for once, Ami wasn't discussing the likelihood of another attack on the city.  “Have you heard from Usagi at all?”  
  
“No.  Though I doubt she would have called me anyway.”  
  
“Why not?  You’re the only one who actually saw him.”  
  
Ami still looked pained, as if Makoto had pinched an old bruise.  “I’m also the bearer of bad news.  I’m the one who told her.”  
  
In reality, it had been Rei who got through to her, but Makoto doubted saying so would have made much of a difference.  She reached out and grabbed Ami’s uninjured wrist, holding it gently.  “She doesn’t blame you.  She couldn’t.”  
  
“I know that,” Ami muttered, staring at their hands.  
  
“So why are you acting like she would?”  
  
Ami’s body physically curled away from the question, an evasion without completely fleeing.  Makoto kept holding on, taking care not to cause any pain, but making it clear that she wasn’t going anywhere.  
  
“I didn’t do my job,” Ami admitted finally.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“I’m supposed to be the one who knows things.  I read the data and discern the most likely conclusion.  That's my function.  That's my role.”  
  
Makoto hesitated before saying, “You’re losing me, Ami.  What does this have to do with—"  
  
“She asked me if he would be okay,” Ami said.  “I told her that he would be, and I was wrong.”  
  
Makoto exhaled, realizing at last what the issue was.  She’d been concerned about Ami’s reaction the day before, or at least she had become anxious when she’d had time to think about it.  They were all upset, Usagi obviously more than all of them put together, but Ami’s visceral response hadn’t made sense.  Now it did.  
  
So just like the day before, she put her arms around Ami and gave her the best hug she could manage.  It wasn't easy with their accumulated injuries, but they both needed it, so it was worth doing.  “It’s not your fault."  
  
“I should have prepared her for the possibility."  
  
“You honestly think you could have burst that optimistic bubble?” Makoto asked.  “Minako brooding in a corner didn’t do it.  Rei actually being gentle didn’t do it.  What makes you think logic could have penetrated that?”  
  
“Then I shouldn’t have promised anything,” Ami said.  “I should have just said I didn’t know and left it at that.”  
  
“As if she would have let you,” Makoto reasoned.  “You’re right.  You are the one we depend on to have answers, and that probably isn’t fair.  She would have pressed you until you said one way or the other, but it wouldn’t have made a difference.”  
  
“But I thought I was right,” Ami said.  “I thought he’d remember.”  
  
Makoto gave her another squeeze.  “You can’t be right all the time.  That would be too easy.”  
  
“It’s not easy either way.”  
  
Makoto shrugged and stepped away.  The tentative positioning was beginning to make her side ache, and Ami wouldn't thank her if she made her injuries any worse.  “If it was, I’d be the brains instead of the brawn.  Trust me, kicking butt is way less complex than what you do.  And more fun.”  
  
"If you say so.”  
  
“Damn right I do,” Makoto teased.  
  
Ami almost smiled.  “Do you think she’ll come today?” she asked.  
  
“No idea,” Makoto yawned.  “I only came because I knew you would.”  
  
“Am I that predictable?”  
  
“If the apocalypse were hours away, and you had a test, I would have to physically drag you away,” Makoto deadpanned, preparing to enter the building.  
  
She stopped short when she saw Haruna, Usagi’s teacher.  And also Natsumi’s.  An’s.

They had never actually discussed what, if anything, they were going to say about Natsumi and Seijuurou.  The police had spoken to them once the hospital staff had cleared them and before Mamoru had woken up.  They'd kept things as vague as possible, acting as if they were too confused and traumatized to actually be of any help to authorities.

They had agreed to say they were there visiting friends, and she at least had added that she had no idea what had happened to them in the commotion.  The officer she'd been speaking to had been shocked.  He'd been under the impression the whole building was abandoned.

Which was good.  Beyond good.  Makoto had gotten a look at the damage while she'd been loaded into the ambulance.  She felt confident the only reason they'd survived was their supernatural constitutions and being literally on top of the disaster.  Anyone below them might have been crushed to death before they could get out.

“Do you think she knows?” Ami asked, stepping beside Makoto.  “Where they lived?  It was all over the news last night.”  
  
Makoto hadn’t turned on the television.  “What did they say?  Gas leak?”  They always said gas leak.  
  
“Too many people saw the vines, so they didn’t even pretend to have an explanation.  I think they’re starting to realize that people aren’t believing them, so saying nothing is actually a watchword for our business.”  
  
“As long as they don’t get in the way, I don’t care what they say,” Makoto said.  “So I guess we have to tell her and everyone else… something.”  
  
“My mother kept saying it was a miracle we survived,” Ami pointed out.  “We might not have, if things had been a little different.  They might not have."  
  
"I was afraid you were going to say that."  Makoto scrubbed a hand down her face.  "They're going to search the building.  What happens when they don't find any bodies?"  She shuddered, suddenly stricken.  "Shit.  What happens if they do?"

"I scanned the building before we went up," Ami said.  "There was no one else there."

"Thank God," Makoto breathed, sagging in relief.  "The cop I talked to said it was abandoned, but you never know."

"Ail and An probably drove off any squatters that had been there before.  Actually, the psychic presence of the Makaiju might have been sufficient cause for anyone else to leave."  Ami paused.  "But we said we went there to visit friends.  They're looking for them anyway.  They'll draw the conclusions on their own."

Makoto swallowed around the lump forming in her throat.  "And the fact that there won't be any bodies?"

"The authorities know something unexplainable happened," Ami said.  "Honestly?  It wouldn't surprise me to learn they aren't looking that hard."

Makoto's guts twisted at the revelation.  Ail and An were fine.  Happy even.  They were going off on their own to rebuild their lives, rebuild their race.  They weren't dead.

But on some level, Natsumi and Seijuurou _were_ , and hearing that people might not even care, might not even bother to look because looking meant knowing what they didn't want to know disgusted her.

"Fuck," Makoto swore with feeling.

The tips of Ami's ears turned pink, but she didn't disagree.

* * *

Mamoru hated hospitals. 

Well, that wasn’t precisely true.  It wouldn’t have made much sense for a future doctor to hate the place he was most likely to work.  Better to say he hated being a hospital patient.  He’d spent too much of his childhood as one, terrified, alone, and with a blank spot in his head where the previous nine years of his life should have been.  
  
He'd read a lot during those long months recuperating.  He hadn't had much else to do, and the nurses were happy to indulge him with books rescued from rummage sales, borrowed from libraries, and unearthed from their own collections.  There had been one that was... not a collection of fairy tales, but a collection of fairy stories.  They'd been Celtic or Gaelic or... come to think of it, he didn't know the difference.  He'd read the Ballad of Tam Lin, of the dangers of stepping into a ring of mushrooms, of the Wild Hunt, and how cold iron could burn.

Then he'd read a story about changelings.  Fairy children left in place of the humans that had been stolen away under the hills.  And something twisted.  Shifted.  Wrenched.  To this day, he didn't know if it had been repressed grief or a bad reaction to medication or simply being very young and very afraid, but he'd started crying so hard they'd had to sedate him.

Because he'd been sure in that moment, certain in the way only frightened young children could be, that he was a changeling.  He'd been left in a world and a life he didn't know, altered and abandoned, and he would never really be home again.  Home was at the bottom of a ravine in the twisted wreckage of a car crash, or it was over the hills and far away.  Either way, he couldn't go back.  
  
Mamoru shook his head.  He hurt, he was lonely, and maybe he did just hate hospitals after all.  “Pathetic.”  
  
"I wouldn’t say that.  You know, some of the nurses are saying that you’re the cutest patient they’ve had in a while,” a cheerful voice announced from the doorway.  “Underneath the hideous facial bruising, I assume.”  
  
Gratitude swelled in Mamoru's chest.  He hoped his face didn't betray how much as he carefully turned to greet his visitor.  “What?  You don’t go for tall, dark, and lacerated?”  
  
“It's a difference of opinion.  They think it makes you look rugged.  I think it makes you look like shit.”  
  
“Motoki, don’t feel the need to pull your punches.  Tell me how you really feel,” Mamoru quipped.  He raised an eyebrow when he saw the crystal vase Motoki held in his hand, filled to the brim with a dozen red roses.  He also had a slim white box that almost certainly contained chocolate.  “And what did they say when they saw you bringing me that?”  
  
Motoki shrugged and strode deeper into the room.  “Mostly a lot of giggling.  But I'm pretty sure I heard the word 'adorable' mentioned at least twice."  He set the flowers on the table next to Mamoru's bed, and then handed him the box.  "I got a box with as little nougat as humanly possible."  
  
“You are a god among men."  
  
“That's what I keep telling people,” Motoki said, his smile just a bit too wide.  Motoki often acted alarmingly upbeat, but even Mamoru could tell it was taking a lot of effort for him to stay positive for this conversation.  After catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror that morning, Mamoru didn’t blame him.  
  
“Thanks for coming,” Mamoru murmured.  “Really.”  
  
“As if you’d have let me hear the end of it if I hadn’t,” Motoki said, pulling up a chair.  “You’d have come into the arcade every day, sighing dramatically, ordering large chocolate shakes to ease your wounded soul.”  
  
Mamoru coughed.  “Funny.  I think my soul’s the only part of me that's not wounded.”  
  
“I don’t know.  Your pinky looks all right.”  Motoki’s smile faded.  “Seriously, Mamoru.  What happened?”  
  
Mamoru shaded his eyes.  He didn't think he could tell Motoki about Natsumi and Seijuurou.  He'd told Motoki every other weird thing that had happened to him in the past two months, but somehow admitting that he'd been casual acquaintances with extra-terrestrials would have strained the limits of their friendship.  And possibly landed him in the psyche ward.  “Oh, you know.  Usual alien insanity.”  
  
“Minako said it was a giant tree.”  
  
“Usual alien insanity and a giant tree.  You talked to Minako?”  
  
"She came into the arcade this morning.  She said she really needed coffee and didn't think any other business would give it to a middle-schooler."

"Fair."  Mamoru opened the box of candy Motoki had brought, glanced at the key, and selected a piece that looked appetizing.  Assuming he read it correctly.  "What are they saying about… casualties?”  Another reason he couldn't say anything about Natsu—Ail and An.  After he'd passed out, he had no idea what had happened to them.  He hadn't been in a position to ask Ami to stay and explain the particulars.  If they were dead, he... he actually didn't know how he would feel.  
  
Oblivious to Mamoru's own concerns, Motoki closed his eyes and recited, “We are very sorry, but we cannot report on whether or not anyone was hurt in this terrible accident.  We cannot release information about that at this time.”  
  
“Glued to the TV I see.”  
  
Motoki glared.  It could have stripped paint off the walls.  “Well, yeah.  When I woke up this morning and saw the news, I recognized the building.  I knew you'd gone over there, and it took me an hour and a half to figure out if you were alive.  So forgive me if I watched the news a bit excessively to see if you weren't."  
  
Mamoru flinched.  He'd deserved that.  "I should have called."  
  
"Yes.  You should have," Motoki snapped.  Then the anger bled out of him, and he just looked caught halfway between tired and frightened.  Add a few bandages and a lot of bruising, and he and Mamoru might have been indistinguishable.  "No, I'm sorry.  You were probably unconscious most of the night.  Besides, you wouldn't have gotten through.  I was on the phone with Reika until after midnight."

Mamoru swallowed and held out the chocolate box by way of peace offering.  "How is she?"

"I'll regale you with every significant-insignificant detail when you're not hooked up to an IV," Motoki promised, selecting a flavor he knew Mamoru wouldn't eat.  He was a better friend than Mamoru deserved for that alone.  "Don't change the subject."

"Which was?"

"How we need to make me your emergency contact as soon as possible because I am not going to have a repeat of this morning.  Ever."

Mamoru had to admit that wasn't a terrible idea.  He didn't have anyone else, after all.  "I'd say, 'what are the odds of it happening again,' but—"  
  
“—you've turned into a magnet for monumental weirdness?” Motoki finished.

"Not sure I'd put it like that."

"Really?"  Motoki began to count off recent events on his fingers.  "The virtual reality game center, the Snow White play, the adventure in baby-sitting.  Need I go on?”  
  
“Apparently great evil is attracted to tall, dark, and lacerated,” Mamoru said, deciding not to point out that the baby-sitting had been a consequence of a strange encounter and wasn't weird in itself.  Well, it had been strange, and strangely fun, but that wasn't relevant.  
  
"You have nothing else to say for yourself?”  
  
“What?  Like I'm secretly Sailor Moon or something?”

He choked.  He shouldn't have said that.  He shouldn't have brought her up.  He'd been spending every waking minute aggressively not thinking about Sailor Moon, and now he'd gone and brought her up.  What if he said something wrong or something too close to the truth?  It wasn't his secret to tell, barely his secret to contemplate.  He had no idea how to even begin to deal with what she'd said, and—  
  
And then Motoki burst out laughing so hard tears streamed down his face.

"The hell?" Mamoru asked, gaping.

"I'm sorry," Motoki cried, clutching his stomach.  "I just pictured you in the outfit."

Mamoru glowered.  He took it back.  Motoki was the worst.  "That's it.  No more chocolate for you."

"No, but.  But you have to picture it with me.  I'm telling you.  It's a vision."

"Possibly no more friendship for you either, but definitely no chocolate."

Motoki covered his face helplessly.  "But the _pigtails_ —"  
  
“Motoki, they're going to throw you out if you can't get it together.  Because I'm going to tell them to throw you out if you can't get it together.”  
  
“Okay.  Okay, okay.  I'm good.  I promise."  He had reigned in the hysterics, but he was clearly still struggling to keep a straight face.  “But seriously, you don’t like… go looking for trouble, do you?  Because that’s not okay.  You realize that’s not okay?”  
  
"Really?  Your next hypothesis is that I’m some kind of vigilante superhero?" Mamoru asked, incredulous.  "Like that weird guy who looked like he’s watched _Arabian Nights_ too many times?”

“Yeah, that doesn’t seem like your style.  There was a guy with a tuxedo before though.  That's way more your speed.”  
  
Mamoru had no idea what Motoki was talking about.  “Who?”  
  
“What do you mean who?  The guy in the—Wait, are you saying you don’t remember him?”  
  
“No, I’m just asking stupid questions to irritate you.”  
  
Motoki scratched his head.  “That's weird.  I swear you went after a plushie of him in the crane game a few months ago.”  
  
"Seriously?"

Motoki nodded.

"I have no memory of that whatsoever," Mamoru murmured.  He didn't know that he wanted to examine that too closely.  His memory before the car accident was an empty hole, an absence that could not be filled.  Sometimes he'd wondered what might happen if his memory in the here and now started to slip, and he—

He really didn't want to deal with that on top of everything else.

“You said you talked to Minako," he said, gracelessly changing the subject.  "Are the girls okay?"   
  
Motoki gave him a knowing look but said nothing.  “Apparently, you're the only one in the hospital, so that's something.  Makoto hurt her ribs, and Rei and Ami sprained their ankle and wrist respectively.  Minako was vague about her own injuries, but she managed to get her hands on some prescription pain meds somehow.”  
  
Motoki stopped.

On purpose, Mamoru knew.

To prompt the eighteenth iteration of a conversation he had no desire to have.  He hadn't wanted to have it before yesterday, and he certainly didn't want to have it when he had another person's secrets to keep.

But he couldn't just leave it hanging there, so he said, “And Usagi?”

"About the same as Minako, I understand."

That... didn't sound right.  Usagi - as Usagi and as Sailor Moon - had been thrown around as much as he had.  If anyone else should be in the hospital it was her.  Right?

Just how powerful was she?

"Funny," Motoki announced after closely studying whatever micro-expressions Mamoru had neglected to conceal.  "You seem especially worried about Usagi.  I wonder why that is?"

He didn't say, 'Because she's apparently a superhero who said some weird shit I don't understand about princesses and moon kingdoms right before she said she loved me.  Which is somehow even more incomprehensible to me because I'm just that broken of a person.'

Mamoru actually said, “Motoki, the tree had me in one branch and Usagi in another.  We survived a situation that could have easily killed us both, so yes, I’m interested in how she is.”  
  
Motoki had the grace to look chagrined, but he was undeterred.  “You know that’s not what I meant.”  
  
"And you know I'm not going to discuss this just like we didn't discuss this before."  
  
Motoki sighed.  "I'm just trying to save us all some valuable time."

"How do you factor into this at all?"

"Well, you obviously have feelings for her - do not interrupt me with your piss poor denials I am very tired.  I think she likes you too, but I'm not getting dragged into that 'no one could ever possibly love my pathetic brooding soul woe-is-me' nonsense again.  And in the meantime, everyone else has to just sit back watching the two of you dance around this thing you refuse to acknowledge is a thing."  
  
He had to extricate himself from this conversation.  He'd felt a similar urgency with previous versions, but now it was more than just his jagged heart and social ineptitude at stake.  It was about Usagi and her secrets, about the fact that Usagi even had any secrets, what she'd said to him, which...

Which Mamoru was laughably ill-equipped to deal with.

"Tell you what," Mamoru said.  "If I can get out of the hospital and go two weeks without getting attacked by trees or mistaken for a vampire or falling down a rabbit hole, then you and I can have this conversation."

Motoki's jaw didn't actually drop, but it was a near thing.  "You— I— Damn it."

Mamoru selected another chocolate to celebrate this, the flimsiest of victories.  "Cross my heart, etcetera."

"That sounds so reasonable on the surface that I don't have a counterargument," Motoki lamented.  "Shit.  Touché."

Which had been more or less Mamoru's goal.  He couldn't put off this conversation with Motoki forever, especially not when he lacked any escape routes.  He could, however, postpone it until after he spoke with Usagi.

In the meantime, maybe he could figure out if he dreaded it or not.

* * *

Luna admitted that she was more than a little protective of her charge.  There wasn’t a concrete reason for her to go to the school to check on Usagi, but she wanted to.  Around lunch time, Luna made her way to the school grounds and trotted over to the tree where Makoto, Ami, and Usagi usually had lunch.

She saw Ami and Makoto.  No Usagi.  
  
Luna’s darted, weaving around the legs of students flirting and playing Frisbee.  She reached the pair shortly, panting furiously.  
  
Both Ami and Makoto were instantly on edge.  
  
“What’s wrong?”  
  
“Is Usagi okay?”  
  
Luna ignored them.  “I don't know.  Where is she?”  
  
They both stared at her.  Then they looked at each other in confusion.  
  
“You said Usagi wasn't in class, right?" Makoto asked.  
  
“No,” Ami said.  “I assumed she'd stayed home."  
  
“But if you’re here,” Makoto murmured, “Usagi didn’t stay home.”  
  
Luna shook her head.  “No.  She left early.  I thoguht she couldn’t sleep and hoped to talk to you girls before class.  I just came by to see how she was holding up.”  
  
Ami wrung her hands.  “Where could she have gone if not here?”  
  
“Mamoru?” Makoto asked.  
  
“I doubt it,” Luna said.  “You didn’t see her after the hospital.  She never seemed to calm down.  She got quieter, but not… not better.  She’s absolutely shattered that he doesn’t remember.  I don’t think she’s ready to face him.  It might not have even occurred to her.”  
  
Makoto nodded brusquely.  “I’m calling her.”  She pulled her pink communicator out and pressed in the key to call Usagi.  Luna held her breath, waiting to hear Usagi’s staticy voice coming from the speakers.

Several seconds passed, and nothing happened.  
  
Makoto looked at them both, now just as concerned as Luna.  “She’s not answering.”  
  
“Let me try,” Ami offered, though it was clear she doubted the results would be any different.  After a few more attempts from each of them, it was clear that for whatever reason, Usagi wasn’t going to answer.  
  
“That girl!” Luna spat, her back arching.  “She must know how worried we all are.  To cut off all contact at a time like this.”  
  
Ami worried at her lip again.   “Do you think she’s in danger?”  
  
“Another enemy?” Makoto asked.  "Or... you don't think Ail and An changed their mind and came back?"  
  
“That seems unlikely,” Luna said.  “I’m more concerned about what Usagi will do on her own.”  
  
Ami and Makoto blanched.  
  
“You think she’d hurt herself?” Ami finished, gearing up to a full-fledged panic.  
  
Luna sighed.  “I honestly don’t know.  I’ve never seen her like this.  Even when Mamoru was taken by the Dark Kingdom, she was able to stay positive.  It’s like this was the last straw.  I’m sure with time and our support she’d be all right, but if she won’t talk to us—"  
  
Makoto nodded, taking charge in a situation where both Ami and Luna were clearly inept.  “I think we should call the others.  I'll take Minako.  If I know her, she ditched, so she can look around the usual haunts.”  
  
“I doubt Rei can move around very easily, but if she's home, she can look in the fire.  Or maybe Usagi would answer Rei,” Ami added.  
  
“Maybe,” Luna agreed.  She turned, glancing over her shoulder.  “You girls do that.  I’ll start searching on my own.  Tell Minako that Artemis should do the same.  I’ll stop by her house to tell him myself just in case they're not together.”  
  
Ami and Makoto bobbed their heads in tandem and then bent over their communicators to call their respective Senshi.  Luna took off again like a shot, leaping and clawing her way up a tree near the gate and vaulting over the side.  Then she ran through the streets, glancing left and right for a familiar pair of gold pigtails.  
  
Chances were good Luna was overreacting.  Usagi might have fallen asleep somewhere or hadn’t heard her communicator.  Maybe she was at the movies or in a public place where she couldn’t get to it.  There were a hundred reasons why Usagi hadn’t answered.  
  
But Luna always feared the worst and prepared for it.  That’s how she kept it from happening.  And if she couldn't prevent the worst from occurring, it was how she survived it.

* * *

Rei had been awoken by Ami’s call in the middle of the afternoon.  She hadn’t meant to sleep so late.  In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept past six in the morning regardless of how late she’d been up fighting the night before.  It seemed Yuuichirou and her grandfather had conspired to keep her in bed, but no amount of covering her windows or stealing her alarm clock could keep her asleep once her communicator rang.

Once Ami finished briefing her, Rei called Usagi herself.  She wasn't surprised when Usagi didn't pick up.  Then she snarled, threw the covers off her legs, and scrambled to her feet.  
  
Only she'd forgotten her ankle couldn't take any weight.  She shouted as pain lanced through her and had to struggle to stay upright.  A second later, her door slid open with a bang.  Her grandfather stood there, scowling, as if he’d been waiting for this.  
  
“Get back in bed.”  
  
Rei rolled her eyes.  She didn’t have time for this.  “Grandpa, I’m fine.”  
  
“Oh, your ankle is usually the size and color of a bowling ball, is it?”  
  
“The day is almost gone!  My chores—"  
  
“Yuuichirou is taking care of them,” he assured her, as if this would alleviate her feigned concerns.  
  
“So then I’ll have to fix everything he’s done wrong.”  
  
“I’ve already done that.”  
  
“Then why did you have him do anything to begin with?” Rei demanded, hopping over to her crutches.  
  
Her grandfather sighed.  “Anything to keep him from hovering over you.  Honestly, he’s like an old woman sometimes.”  
  
Despite her frustration, Rei felt some distant fondness towards him for that.  Yuuichirou could be the biggest pain in the universe, but he did care.  It had taken nearly twenty minutes to convince him not to come to the hospital immediately when she first called, and he'd been readily available to pick her up when she was ready to leave.  
  
Her grandfather pointed firmly at her bed.  “Now get off your feet before you hurt yourself again!”  
  
Rei limped past him.  “Fine.  I won’t do chores.  But I need to eat, don’t I?”  
  
“I can bring you breakfast,” he insisted, stepping in front of her again.

She glanced meaningfully at the nearest clock.

"Lunch," he amended.  
  
For once, Rei didn't make time to argue further.  “ _Okay_.  But at least let me meditate.  You know I feel scattered unless I start my day in front of the fire.  Granted, the day started without me thanks to two meddling busybodies you might know."  
  
Her grandfather sighed loudly, just to let her know how unhappy he was with this plan.  “I suppose you’re right.  It’s important for you to maintain your center through meditation.”  He turned and toddled away, muttering just loudly enough for her to hear.  “Kami help us if you were even more bad-tempered.”  
  
Rei let that pass without comment.  For now.

As soon as he was out of ear shot, Rei half-jogged/half-hopped to the meditation chamber.  Sheer luck kept Yuuichirou from finding her.  He would have been even more difficult to placate.  
  
Once she reached the sacred fire, she slid the door shut behind her.  For a moment, she despaired that one couldn’t actually lock a screen door.  Then she stepped limped into the room and knelt before the fire, which took some maneuvering and possibly pulled something.

She began reciting her mantra, getting lost in it and clearing her mind of all extraneous thoughts.  She thought only of Usagi, knowing that the fire was unlikely to give her exact coordinates.  It didn't work like that, convenient as it may have been.  She just needed to make sure Usagi wasn’t in immediate danger.  
  
“Rin, Pyo, To, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen.  Rin, Pyo, To, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen.  Rin, Pyo, To, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen.”  
  
Suddenly, her eyes flew open instinctively as she felt the fire lick at her inner sight.  
  
She saw.

A golden crescent moon, the symbol of the ancient monarchy and her missing friend.  Then an inverted, black moon superimposed itself over the familiar image.  They faded in and out, one dominating the other at all times, like a cyclical battle between them.  
  
Then it stopped with dark overshadowing light.  The golden crescent tarnished and turned that same cold, empty ebony.  A moment later, there were no longer two moons.  Just one, as dark and deep as a crow's wing at night.  
  
Rei blinked and the vision was gone.  She stared, the back of her neck drenched in sweat.  Then she slammed her fists against the floorboards and struggled to her feet.  She pulled out her communicator and called the others.  She couldn't interpret what it meant, but she knew an ill omen when she saw it.

* * *

After the battle with the Makaiju had ended, long after the building had been abandoned by those who had waged it, the ruined apartment complex turned into a crime scene swarming with activity.  The press demanded to know what had happened and were told nothing.  The fire department struggled to make sense of the debris and found it exceeded their worldview.  Men and women in black suits and dark glasses followed them, and if they could read the clues in the cracks and crumbling foundations, they didn't say.

Ami didn't know it yet, but she'd been correct.  There were no bodies, not even those of the two teenagers who had reportedly lived in the penthouse.  Records would later reveal that Seijuurou and Natsumi Ginga didn't, strictly speaking, exist.  Rather, they had not existed until six weeks prior to the incident.  At that point, with no family clamoring for answers and the news cycle focused on other matters, they would quietly shuffle the mystery of the Odyssey Apartment Complex's destruction to the bottom of a very tall pile and forget about it.

Usagi didn't know that either, though she'd spent her day watching hundreds of people excavate the ruined building.  She also didn't quite know why she'd come.  Turning away from Juuban Middle School had not been a conscious decision on her part.  Her feet had seemed to act of their own accord, and either through intuitive acquiescence or sheer exhaustion, she had not questioned her direction.  When she arrived at her destination, she'd decided to wait and watch them.  It wasn't as though she had any better ideas.  
  
Now she was alone.  Well, not precisely alone, as a few other people had come down to see what all the fuss was about, snapping photos and gawking at the remnants of yet another unexplained disaster in their city.  Yellow tape crisscrossed every conceivable entrance to the building, a warning that felt more like prison bars, trying to cage a monster that was no longer there.  The building had been abandoned, and now it was condemned.  People were watching, but they weren't watching closely, because no one wanted to get too close.

Except Usagi did.  
  
She jogged across the empty street, her satchel thumping against her legs with every stride.  She carefully ducked beneath the tape nearest the front entrance.  The sliding glass doors were gone, remembered only by dust and shards.  Mindful of the thin soles of her shoes, Usagi stepped inside.  
  
The lobby alone was a disaster.  While waiting to hear about Mamoru the night before, Rei and Makoto had told her about fighting through the Makaiju’s branches to get to her.  Even after seeing the tree in action, Usagi could hardly believe the damage it had caused.  It looked as though a bomb had gone off.  
  
Shivering, Usagi turned towards the staircase, remembering that the elevators were a lost cause.  She moved forward, realizing why she'd come.  She needed to get to the roof.  The place where she, as Sailor Moon, had finally told Mamoru that she was in love with him.  The place where she had failed to get him back.  
  
Usagi began to ascend the countless flights of stairs, trying to avoid the more treacherous areas.  She looked for footprints that showed where others had stepped and tried to stick to the path they'd unintentionally laid out for her.  When she started having trouble keeping her balance, she abandoned her lunch and her briefcase and kept climbing.  One step at a time, one foot after the other.  
  
On the third flight, she miscalculated.  Her foot slipped, and the step gave way.  She shrieked as the world tilted out from underneath her and tumbled.  She tried to grab the handrail, missed, and plummeted down half a flight, crashing into the wall when she reached the landing.

She hugged herself, whimpering.  She'd definitely popped some of her stitches and added a new ugly scrape on the side of her leg besides.  She hurt.  Everything hurt.  Everything had hurt before, and now it was worse, but she didn't care, she had to reach the top and...

And then what?  
  
There was no monster to free from a cage, no great evil to defeat.  She was the victim of circumstance, of bad luck, of wrong assumptions.  There were no answers up there.  There were no answers at all.  
  
Usagi let out a strangled sob.  She covered her mouth as if to quash it, but the sound leaked out from around her fingers.  Her body shook, sorrow welling up from the darkest parts of her.

This had all been pointless.  Not just the climb or the fall, but everything.  Trying to jog Mamoru's memory, trying to spend time with him, trying to see if he still cared about her.  Nothing mattered.  Because if Tsukikage no Knight hadn't brought those memories back, Usagi didn't think anything would.

* * *

Elsewhere, Minako, Ami, and Makoto answered Rei's call.

“Did you reach her?” Ami asked, apparently the most optimistic.  
  
“Not exactly,” Rei answered, limping through the grounds of the Hikawa Shrine.  “Not at all, actually, but I had a vision.”  
  
"I don't suppose just this once you had a nice vision of nice things happening that don't mean the world or at least our weekend is doomed?" Minako asked.

"No."

"Shit," Makoto swore.  
  
“I’m not sure what I saw,” Rei admitted.  “It was about Usagi, I think.”  She closed her eyes.  Pulling her punches was pointless, and it always had been.  “It might have been a new enemy.”  
  
The news clearly rocked them all; Rei was still reeling from the notion.  They had only just defeated their last opponent.  Did they have to go to war again so soon?  
  
Makoto was the first to recover, and her response was predictable.   _"Shit."_  
  
“Don't ask me to explain,” Rei said, heading off what was likely to be Minako's next question.  “The point is that there might be a new evil, and none of us can reach Usagi.”  
  
Ami paled.  “You don’t think—"  
  
“I don’t know,” Rei groaned, slamming the screen to her bedroom shut.  “Do you want to take the chance?”  
  
Unsurprisingly, none of them did.

* * *

High above the earth, a spacecraft loomed like something out of a science-fiction novel, cloaked by an amalgamation of magic and technology that would not be discovered for centuries to come.  It did not resemble the flying saucers featured so prominently in the missives of the paranoid and the hopeful.  Instead, the craft featured countless sharp spines jutting out from its center, a jagged jewel suspended in the air.  It looked like a star had exploded at the height of its combustion and crystalized into something like black jade.  It bore no name, but its silhouette conjured plenty of possibilities: Sinister, Destroyer, Ebony Dawn.

Inside, floating amidst criss-crossing arcs of multicolored light, a platform hung.  It spun on a skewed axis above a grey void.  In the center, hung five full-length mirrors, complete with vanities.  
  
Four sisters, bound by blood and malice, stood before their respective mirrors, all involved in various stages of getting made up.  Every now and again, one of them would glance back at the unoccupied mirror, an expectant look on her face.  It remained empty.  
  
The youngest nervously fiddled with her appearance despite the fact that there was nothing more to be improved.  She glanced back towards the fifth mirror far more than the others, fidgeting all the while.  
  
Calaveras stopped pinning up her hair, irritated by her sister’s fretting.  "Pining for Master Rubeus, Cooan?"  
  
Koan scowled at the brunette’s reflection.  "Shut up."  
  
“Temper, temper,” she chided.  “Mustn’t have a tantrum.”  
  
Before Koan could respond, Petz, the eldest, intervened.  “Calaveras, stop instigating.  Koan, stop taking the bait.”

"She started it!" Koan hissed, regretting it almost immediately.  
  
“I’ll stop instigating when you two stop wearing feathers.”  Calaveras wrinkled her nose.  “Tacky.”  
  
The palest of the four, Berthier, sighed loudly.  “Much as I would love to participate in your endless squabbles, I feel it prudent to point out that he’s been gone for a long time.  Perhaps you ought to worry more, Calaveras.”  
  
She shrugged and returned to her hair.  “Why should I bother myself with Master Rubeus’s problems?”  
  
Petz pulled on her forest green glove, making a fist once it was secure.  “Probably because they’re likely to be yours soon enough.  We’re not here on a pleasure cruise.”  
  
“I should hope not,” Calaveras murmured.  “The 20th century would make a horrible vacation spot.”  
  
“Can’t you take anything seriously?” Petz snapped.  
  
Calaveras smirked.  “Why?  It’s so much more fun to bait you.”  
  
Petz was clearly on the verge of starting what would surely have become a legendary argument, which Berthier was in no mood to witness.  Once upon a time, it might have been amusing, but after watching the same scene a hundred times, it had just gotten predictable.  “Is this how it’s going to be for this whole mission?” she asked.  “I’ll have to be especially productive just to get away from you two.”  
  
“How is that any different from before?” Koan muttered.  
  
Berthier nodded.  “Too true.”  
  
Petz glowered at the pair as if they were to blame for an entire nation’s unrest.  “It’s not my fault she’s so flippant and lazy at every turn!”  
  
Calaveras rolled her eyes.  “And it’s not my fault you’re in desperate need of a truly excellent lay.”  
  
Petz snarled while Berthier held her head in her hands.  
  
Calaveras grinned, white teeth glinting like knives.  “Though apparently not as much as Koan.”  
  
Stretched beyond her limits, Koan let out a wordless scream and threw her compact at Calaveras's head.  
  
At that precise moment, the surface of the fifth mirror rippled, and the man they had all been waiting for stepped out his jacket casually slung over his shoulder but the rest of his posture rigid with agitation.  He reached out with his other hand and snatched the projectile out of the air without breaking stride.  His eyes flitted over to a furiously blushing Koan, frozen in shame.  
  
"Stop behaving like a child."  He seemed to carelessly toss the makeup back to her, but it clearly took Koan some effort to catch.  
  
She inclined her head, jaw clenched as she bid it not to tremble.  "Forgive me, Master Rubeus."  
  
"I have little choice.  There’s no going back without completing our mission." he replied dismissively.  He angled his body so that he could address the group as a whole.  "And on that note I regret to inform you that plans have changed."

Berthier, the one most likely to be perturbed by an alteration at this stage, frowned.  "What do you mean, Master Rubeus?"  
  
"We’ve received new orders."

Petz glared.  "What kind of new orders?"

"I thought the plan was set," Koan said.  She started to bite her lip before she remembered the care she'd taken with her lipstick.

Calaveras sighed, "This is such a pain.  Why is this happening?"

"The better question," Berthier mused, her breezy tone at odds with the calculating look in her eye, "is what's gone wrong to necessitate the change in the first place?"

Rubeus let out a frustrated sigh and tossed his leather jacket over the mirror he'd just stepped through.  "Saphir didn't deign to explain his reasons."

Petz curled both of her hands into fists and snarled, almost to herself, "He never does."

Before Calaveras could poke at that sore spot, an act Berthier felt even a child could predict, she said, "If we are no longer ordered to kill the Rabbit and corrupt the foundations of Crystal Tokyo, what are we expected to do?"

"You can't guess?" Rubeus asked, a dangerous lilt in his query.

Berthier smiled coolly.  "I have several suppositions.  I'm interested to see which way Prince Demando's wisdom will direct us."

"Right.  Wisdom," Rubeus snorted.  He barely made an effort to conceal his contempt for their superiors these days.  Someone might have pointed out that this may have been why he'd been left out of the loop in strategy sessions, if they'd dared.

The Ayakashi Sisters rarely agreed on anything, but when it came to deliberately baiting their direct superior, they were united.

"We have been ordered," Rubeus continued, "to eliminate Crystal Tokyo's defenders in this timeline."

For a moment, none of them could muster a response.  Then Calaveras laughed, the sound almost braying against the sudden silence.  "Right.  Because it's not like we've tried _that_ ever before.  It's not why we came back here to begin with."

"They'll be younger," Berthier pointed out.  "Easier to kill, one assumes."

"We've been ordered to take them alive," Rubeus said.

Calaveras groaned.  "That's even more trouble than killing them!"

"We need them alive," Rubeus spat.  "When the Last Calamity hits and the Great Freeze comes, we will need the power of the Ginzuishou.  It may be nothing next to the Jakokuzuishou, but it isn't in its nature to awaken or to heal.  We need a descendant of the White Moon to use the crystal to renew the Earth.  Sailor Moon's survival is necessary.  Yours is not."

Calaveras paled and snapped her mouth shut.

Petz failed not to look smug.  "So I take it we're taking the others hostage as guarantee for good behavior?"  She managed not to add, 'a concept Calaveras knows nothing about,' but it was clearly a near thing.

"That's my understanding," Rubeus said.  "Capturing Sailor Moon is the most important component of the plan.  However, we know from past experience that her guardians will not let us near her if she is threatened.  We'll proceed by first capturing her soldiers, leaving her for last."

"And where are we supposed to find them?" Koan asked.

Rubeus smiled, still grim but satisfied.  "Answering that question accounts for most of my delay.  As you know, many people did not survive the Freeze.  The monarchs of Crystal Tokyo kept notoriously exact records, listing the names of all of those that were classified as missing as many did not remember who they had been before they fell asleep.  In the last assault on the palace, before the Sailor Senshi shielded the city's center, we were finally able to access and copy those records.  
  
"Saphir theorized that the Sailor Senshi must have all had civilian identities in this time period.  In order to protect those identities, he claims they must have been listed as either dead or missing in these records.  He investigated and believes he's discovered the identity of at least one."

"Who?" Koan asked.

"Sailor Mars."

As he spoke, the projector in the middle of the floor of the spaceship whirred to life and a hologram of a young girl with long dark hair appeared.  She was dressed in traditional miko robes and standing on the top of a set of steps.  
  
"Hikawa Jinja," Petz recognized.  
  
"Indeed," Rubeus said.  "There was always some question as to why the Royal Family was so particular about caring for this particular shrine.  We may have found our answer."

Koan stepped forward, eyeing the image of the girl hovering before her.  She had been pitted against Mars often in the future battles.  Their elements and abilities were almost a perfect mirror for one another.  It often led to a stalemate, but when it didn't, Mars outmaneuvered her.  It was high time that changed.  
  
"What's her name?" Koan asked.

"Rei Hino," Rubeus answered.  "I assume you'd like to take point on this mission?"  
  
"You know me so well, Master Rubeus," Koan purred.  
  
Calaveras rolled her eyes at her sister's clumsy flirting but held her tongue.  She wanted to keep it.

"Confirm identity before you take her," Rubeus instructed.  "There's a change the Senshi of Crystal Tokyo left false clues in the records that Saphir didn't bother to notice.  If this is a trap, I won't be responsible.  You will."

Koan bowed her head, but there was something too coquettish in the gesture to be truly deferential.  "Of course, Master Rubeus."

"Berthier, you're the only one who can stand to listen to him for more than ten minutes at a time, so I need you to liaise with Saphir as he hopefully uncovers more about our enemies' identities."

Bethier carefully did not look at Petz.  Calaveras did.  "As you say."

"Petz and Calaveras, be prepared to offer support, but I also want you to keep an eye out for the Rabbit."  Rubeus's expression somehow darkened further than his norm.  "I don't like things being kept from me.  I will know the reason why we've been told not to hunt her down."

"And if we find her?" Petz asked.

Rubeus considered this for a long moment.  Then he shrugged.  "Accidents happen."

Calaveras grinned while Petz nodded resolutely.  "Yes, Master Rubeus," they said.

"You all have your orders."  He glared at each of them in turn.  "You will not fail me.  Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Dismissed."

"As you command."


End file.
